


sasuke's wrists are always covered up

by disgracefics



Category: Naruto
Genre: Canon Compliant, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Gen, Self-Harm, graphic description of self harm, please do not read if you are triggered easily, triggering, vent - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-25 06:35:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20719718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disgracefics/pseuds/disgracefics
Summary: he knows it's wrong.





	sasuke's wrists are always covered up

first things first, he knows it’s wrong.

the first time was an accident. he was training in the disgusting, filthy underground hideout that meant home for that week, crawling with roaches and scorpions and millipedes, and he isn’t all that queasy but glancing down to larvae crawling up his feet made bile build up in his throat. the smell was probably the worst of it all, stuffy and like bodies were rotting all around him (which they probably were).

he was throwing kunai, one after the other, all of them hitting their targets perfectly, like swallows swooping down from the sky in the summer, the way his big brother had taught him (_fuck you, fuck you, i don’t want anything you taught me) _like this was still a game between them and not practice to survive against enemies that were out to kill him at every turn of the way. the thought of his brother still clouded his vision (_so weak so weak why are you so weak) _and one blade slipped from his hands prematurely; it was just an inch, an inch low enough to leave a deep gash on his forearm where he hadn’t worn his wristguards that wake cycle.

(days and nights don’t exist down here. he longs to know what time it is, what day it is, how much time has passed since he left.)

it was the millionth time he’d gotten hurt in his young life, but never like this, never like this, never by his own hand, it was so different; the blood shone scarlet against his paled skin, the wound wept trickles that ran down his wrist, that dripped into a small puddle at his feet, it stained his white shirt, the one he’d grown into over the two years he’d been here, the one that was anything but like his brother. there was no surging hate against anyone because the person who hurt him was himself, he already hates himself. the only thing that existed in that single spectacular moment was pain, nerves lighting on fire, his entire arm going numb while his body curled and twisted with the intense feeling.

he fell in love.

the second time was curiosity. it was a particularly heavy night, his bony body shivering violently with the demand of the cold, his eyelids dragged down by images of scarlet and midnight purple and the pale blue of lips and veins, with the silver shine of sharp metal, with the red spin of eyes. his body sank into the bed heavily, as if the devil himself sat on his chest and he wheezed for breaths like a child waking from a nightmare. like this was the nightmare he was waking up from, with nowhere to escape but another one instead of a mother’s loving arms.

worn fingertips reached subconsciously to run over a white, raised scar and the relief that flooded him felt like he’d just broken the surface of the water he’d been trapped under for the past two years, like the devil left his chest and stared back at him from his wrist instead, eyes glowing red and tempting. he stared into the face of his unintentional self-destruction and the idea hit him like a train.

he experimented.

the glint of the blade was that of a sly fox, of the glare of dog teeth, of a mischievous lover. the torches around provided minimal light, but in the reflection of the cold metal, he saw himself staring back; it was the first time he’d seen himself in months and his reflection was that of a ghost, of a hollow vessel, his eyes nothing like the ones that still held determination, an ounce of a will to live; his hair was dirty, his eyes were bloodshot, his lips were pale blue. he wanted to press the tip of the kunai into his eyes so he didn’t have to look at what he’d become ever again, wanted to drag it over his stomach to expose the guts he didn’t have, but was aware that his existence would be pointless if he gave in to the temptation.

his body was a rental at this moment. he couldn’t damage it permanently like that. but there was no harm in what he was doing now; he was covered with scars all over already. this didn’t count.

he tried dragging the blade over the pale blue popping vein slowly, shallowly, but it wasn’t satisfactory, even when he pressed down harder it didn’t let him suck in the breath he was now so desperate for, so he tilted the kunai in his hand and dragged the tip, scratched it over the skin elegantly, like he was writing calligraphy on his arm; but that felt artificial so he went wilder with it, deeper and deeper again and again and _again_ and_ deeper_ until he could pretend he was a kid scuffing his knee, like it was an accident, like he did it on purpose so his mother paid attention to him while he cried, clutching at the dirty, open skin.

the snakes and larvae gathered at the smell of blood.

then it became a routine, a habit, an addiction.

he’s sitting down on that goddamn stone of a bed, the one that leaves him with a broken spine in the morning, the one that makes him miss the bed (_the one in the house his parents were dead in, still there, no, they were gone_) just so he could sleep well again. he has a favourite kunai, sitting patiently at all times in his pocket like a beloved pet, he has favourite spots, littered with millions of white bumps to the point he can’t tell what’s skin and what’s scar; all of his habits have become well-developed over the course of a year. it’s a routine, a terrible, ridiculous routine: he lets the right part of his shirt fall to the side while the left stays on, he shivers at the cold when it sinks its teeth into his skin, he grabs tightly onto the cool handle and a flash of _home_ runs through him (_these are still the kunai from home). _he takes a deep breath as if it would ease the pain, as if he wants the pain to ease, as if he wants a deep breath. he forces himself to watch as the tip digs into his flesh, as it drags, slow, slow, slow, scrapes against the skin, tears it open like the claw of an animal. he goes slow nowadays, agonising, deep, makes himself _feel _it down to every little fibre of his being until he shakes and trembles and shivers with the pain. he’s way past the point of tears, has been for months, his tear ducts are the dried up rivers of the desert, his pain receptors are shrivelled snakes burned in the summer heat; but he can’t think of heat and the metaphors of it when he’s so cold, when the metal freezes his skin when it drags over the scarred to all hell skin, when the air is even cooler on the open wound.

he loves it when the blood beads up, like it’s growing eyes, eyes like a mouse’s, those terrible lab rats that he sees all the time running around under his feet, _like his brother’s. _the eyes pop then, the blood trickles down again and he releases the deep breath he’d been holding.

he’s not cold, he’s not warm, he’s comfortable. it’s the first one that counts the most, the rest are for his comfort only. they’re the time he spends cradling the one he loves after sex. they’re the proof that he’s fine now and he feels better. they’re the euphoria and how he bathes in it. he breathes. he takes deep breaths because he can, because he _wants to_, because his lungs wheeze and shake with the exhale, because the rush makes his toes go numb and he needs to regain control of his body.

he dislikes the clean-up. it reminds him he’s not above everything and floating the way he feels that he is. he’s himself, stuck underground with scorpions and the smell of rotten flesh, and now he has to clean up the mess he left in the shape of a small puddle at his feet and drops of scarlet on pale blue bedsheets.

he knows it’s wrong.


End file.
